Nothing really new to report. Kristoffer is doing about the same as yesterday. He played football with his Dad yesterday and played with the neighbors dog. He still has not had any nausea. He is getting his 4th day of treatment right now. We will be able to go home after his treatment tomorrow. Yeah!! It has been a long week for all of us.
Kristoffer is still doing great. He is getting his 3rd day of treatment and still has no nausea. He did really well in the fifth wheel last night. We have to wake him up every 2 hours to go to the bathroom because one of the medications can burn his bladder if it is left for to long. He is getting a lot of IV fluids to flush him out and he has done really well. He just gets really annoyed when we wake him up out of a deep sleep.
Congratulations Maggie and Wes!! Maggie gave birth to a beautiful baby girl last night at 11 p.m. She weighed in at 8 pounds 4 ounces and was 19 inches long. She is a chubby little thing with lots of hair. Both mother and baby are doing well.
We are here at UNM for round 4 of Kristoffer's treatment. We were a little disappointed with UNM this time. They dropped the ball with several different things. First, they didn't tell us that Kristoffer's labs would take a whole day to process. So we couldn't even start his treatment until Tuesday. These are labs we could have had done in Farmington but nobody told us that. It wouldn't have mattered anyway because they didn't have a bed until Tuesday at 3p.m. So that turns a 5 day trip into a 7 day trip and these are more days away from our other kids. We were very frustrated with the nurse in charge. But on a better note, Kristoffer started the treatments last night and is doing wonderful. He has not had any nausea or vomiting and he is eating good. So hopefully he will get his next treatment today and then they will let us take him back to our fifth wheel and just come back in daily for his medications. He is having a lot of fun "camping." We brought his bike and all of his favorite things so he is loving it. Thanks to all who are taking care of our kids and helping with meals for our family. We appreciate you!!!
We just completed the 3rd week of chemo today. Kristoffer tolerated it really well. He received this same drug last week and didn't have any side effects. His immune system is getting stronger every day. We might even take him to church this Sunday. Next week, however, will be a different story. He has to be in Albuquerque for 5 days of chemo. One of the drugs is very nauseating so we are hoping he tolerates it as well as he has all of the others. The doctor is going to let us do his 5 days mostly outpatient so Kristoffer doesn't have to sit in a hospital bed for 5 days straight. He gets depressed when he has to be in the hospital.
Kristoffer is pretty proud of his new haircut. I'm glad he wasn't a girl or it would have been a lot harder to cut all his hair off.
Kristoffer gets to come home today. He still has a slight fever but his white blood cell counts are up so he can fight the infection himself. So it does push his next trip to Albuquerque to Monday but we are okay with that. We did go ahead and shave his head because his hair had started falling out. That was hard to do but he was excited to get a buzz.
Kristoffer started running a fever at around 5:oo p.m. last night. It was just 100.6 but any fever over 100.4 requires a trip to the hospital for antibiotics. So he will be in the hospital until at least tonight. He seems to feel just fine but he just has a fever. So hopefully he will only need antibiotics for 24 hours. This time we are just at San Juan Regional so that is much better than being in Albuquerque.
We finished with our 2nd round of chemotherapy. Today was one of the easier days for chemotherapy. It was the most mellow drug that he gets with the most minimal side effects. Needless to say Kristoffer was not excited to head back to Albuquerque but he was a trooper and did it without complaining. The doctor was happy with his progress. The tumor is shrinking. Unfortunately so is Kristoffer. He weighs 47 pounds now. At Thanksgiving he weighed 54 pounds. Some of that is tumor weight which is good. He is eating good though so as long as he keeps eating healthy we will just continue to monitor him. The worst part is that his white blood cells are really low which makes him a really easy target for illness. So we are trying to be very careful with hand washing and not taking him out in public where he could be exposed to bugs. He does get a shot every day that helps with his immune system so hopefully it will improve quickly but it is just one of those side effects of chemotherapy. Luckily today it was just a quick trip so Kristoffer didn't have to stay in the hospital. So we are home safely and he is feeling good.
The daily times did an article on Kristoffer. It must be a slow news day cause they put his picture on the front page of the paper. It was a nice article. Here is the link to the article.
http://www.daily-times.com/four_corners-news/ci_11631410
It is so wonderful to see Kristoffer back to his normal self. Kids don't realize when they are sick. I thought Kristoffer would be laying on the couch but I have to keep telling him to quit tackling Connor. He is a little more tired than normal but still acts just like a little boy. I missed his sweet personality!!!
We are so excited to finally be home. Kristoffer's whole attitude changed when we walked in the door. I think he was starting to get depressed in the hospital. He just seemed so sad. He came in the house and started hiking the football and hugging his brother and sisters. It was nice to see him happy again. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of that but here are some more recent pictures to look at. Thanks again for all of the thoughts and prayers.
The plan today is to drive back home to Farmington. We are still waiting for the Doctor to write the order but we have already loaded up our car and we are "patiently" waiting. Kristoffer had a hard time yesterday watching our other kids get to go home so he is very excited. He is feeling better every day. Just tired. The lab results show that the tumor is already starting to break down from just the two days of chemotherapy. That is exciting news.
Kristoffer had another good night. He still hasn't had any nausea or vomiting. He doesn't feel wonderful but he has been up walking around and playing with his siblings. He enjoyed having them here but I think he was a little overwhelmed with all the attention. He also had some special visitors yesterday. Darth Vader and his storm troopers walked through the pediatric unit. Kristoffer gave Darth Vader a high five. It was cute. So we are now done with this week of chemo. We will hopefully be going home today or most likely tomorrow. yay. I desperately need some sense of a normal life after almost 2 weeks of this. Thank you all again for your thoughts and prayers. We have definately felt the love of our family and friends.
